The woman came to the well for one of the necessities of life: water. And the well was deep.

Jesus came with a desire to speak of other deep needs with her. As soon as she realized that he could respond to those questions: she sought those, too. Both were deep needs.

(And yes, I know that was a pun, and I was warned not to lead with a pun, but, well…)

Here’s a transcript:

To be honest, what I’m thinking this week is: I need a haircut.

And I should probably go to bed early tonight.

I am also thinking about the woman at the Samaritan well who spoke with Jesus (John 4:5-42). She came there with deep problems – literally. The well was deep and she needed the water.

And so her initial conversation with Jesus is all about real-world, tangible things, even though Jesus starts talking about a “living water,” which for him is a metaphor for a spiritual reality, and has a good deal less to do with the water that lies at the bottom of that long, deep hole.

So what I’m thinking this week is that we bring both the real concerns of our daily lives to these encounters with the spiritual, and we also bring the other deep needs of our spiritual lives – because as soon as she figured out that Jesus was a “prophet,” she immediately asked him a critical question about where God really wanted to be worshiped.